Poetry By Adam Hughes

​Fragment (VII)
 
thrash against
me, against
the lies I tell

you to keep you
warm
when there is no

more kindling
and the wind
sweeps through

our hiding places
and turns them
into turtle shells--

part protection
part prison
part anchor

when we find
ourselves
on our backs




Fragment (VIII)
 
I’m counting on you
like a rosary
the beads all worn

and my fingers
indented
like the first

word of a new
paragraph
the roundness

of sacred thoughts
and the brokenness
of sacred votives

and the temple
prostitutes
who count

to god
in waves
more holy

than the tearing
of skin
and sundering--

all the found
things are dull
and used

while the shiny
things were never
lost

but wouldn’t have
been missed
anyway




​Fragment (XIII)
 
The girl
one table over
in the café

keeps laughing
in great gasps
that beg

for air
and I can’t
remember

the last time
I needed
anything

the way
she needs
oxygen

when she
laughs
and as her

laughter
echoes behind
her, I

feel
the loneliness
of needing

everything
so badly that
I need nothing

​

Bio: Adam Hughes is the author of four full-length poetry collections, most recently Allow the Stars to Catch Me When I Rise (Salmon Poetry, 2017) and Deep Cries Out to Deep (Aldrich Press, 2017). Born and raised in Central Ohio, he now resides in the foothills of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains where he is pursuing an MFA at Randolph College. Should you google him, he is not the Adam Hughes who draws near-pornographic depictions of female superheroes. This particular Adam Hughes cannot draw.